Conventional water, gas, or other utility meters normally include a register for accumulating and displaying usage data for customers and utility provider personnel (e.g., meter readers). A typical mechanical register may include odometer-style wheels and/or dials that collectively record the total volume of product used. These registers may be driven by a mechanical or magnetic coupling with a measuring element inside of a measuring chamber of the meter. Gears in the register convert the motion of the measuring element to the proper usage increment for display on the dials and/or wheels. The mechanical register may further include a means of converting the current position of the dials and wheels to an electronic signal for sending the current usage data electronically to automatic meter reading (“AMR”) or advanced metering infrastructure (“AMI”) systems for remote reading and/or monitoring of the metered consumption.
As an alternative to mechanical registers, a solid-state register (“SSR”) may be utilized in meters by a utility provider. SSRs are totally electronic with no mechanical gearing or moving parts and may interface magnetically with the measuring element inside of the measuring chamber of the meter. The SSR uses electronics and firmware programming to detect flow, accumulate usage, and display usage on an LCD or other electronic display. Other operational metrics beyond usage may also be determined and/or displayed, such as average flow rate, instant flow rate, reverse flow, and the like. The programmatic nature of the SSR may allow a single model of register to be programmed with the appropriate parameters and scaling factors to work with a variety of meters and provide higher consumption resolution and accuracy than mechanical odometer registers. SSRs may also provide for the implementation of features not available in traditional mechanical registers, such as accumulation, display, and reporting of operational metrics beyond usage, alarming capability via AMR/AMI systems for tamper conditions and reverse flow, and the like.
An AMR/AMI system may be programmed with the ability to periodically poll the SSRs to read usage data and gather status information. For example, each SSR may be attached to a communication device that polls the SSR for current usage and status information every few hours and transmits the retrieved information back to the utility provider for processing. However, certain alarm conditions in the utility meter, such as reverse flow, register tampering or removal, and the like, may call for instant notification of the utility provider such that the periodic polling by the attached communication device is inadequate.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.